a book unfinished
by vega-de-la-lyre
Summary: When the minister of war meets the King’s Thief’s daughter for the first time in years, it is not under the most favourable of circumstances.


When the minister of war meets the King's Thief's daughter for the first time in years, it is not under the most favourable of circumstances. He doesn't even know her; she has been away from Eddis on a mission for her father for two years, and they have both grown up considerably since the last time they've seen another.

He is in the library, digging up some sketchy topographical maps out of the back room, when he hears a thud from overhead.

He looks over at Ionnina, the record-keeper, where she is busy recopying census statistics. Ionnina shrugs.

"She's at it again," is all she says.

"There's someone up there?" the minister says, aghast. "In this weather? There was ice on the walkways this morning."

"You try and stop her," Ionnina says darkly and not a little cryptically.

The minister abandons his maps and makes his way between the bookcases, to the passage to the roof he knows is tucked away somewhere. As he climbs the staircase, his thoughts are murderous; he has enough trouble keeping the people of Eddis alive without young idiots hanging around on icy roofs for dares or to impress their friends.

When he opens the door, the wind takes it out of his hand immediately, banging it against the wall. The woman standing on the ledge starts and swivels to stare at him immediately, lifting her skirts away from her feet.

He doesn't recognise her, at first.

"What are you doing?" he shouts. It's freezing up here; his tunic is much too thin for this weather.

"Dancing," she says, like it's the most obvious thing in the world, and perhaps it is.

"You're mad," he says, coming closer, and because his heart is in his throat from watching her it comes out a lot more harshly than he'd intended. "Get down from there."

She throws her head back and laughs. Her dark hair tangles in the breeze. "What," she says, "are you going to make me?"

He is sorely tempted.

"Fine," he says. He sits down on an inner ledge, crosses his arms and doesn't move.

She stops and stares at him. "I beg your pardon?" she says.

"Oh, I'm not going anywhere," he says. "I'm responsible now. And when you do fall, at least there will be a witness to your grisly death."

She sighs theatrically. "Oh, very well," she says. "I'll come down, if you're going to be so nervous about it.

He nods, standing, feeling more grateful than he cares to show. "Thank you," he says, turning back to the steps, but she laughs again and when he turns back again she is gone over the edge of the rooftop.

"Gods damn," the minister says, and his blood turns to icewater in his veins and he runs over even though he knows it is already too late, she is already lost and it's his fault –

She is sitting on a window ledge three stories down, craning her neck to peer up at him. "I'd recommend you take the stairs," she calls up, words almost lost on the wind, grinning widely. "Not everyone's as light on their feet as I am."

She disappears into the room, fluttering one hand in a saucy goodbye before she slams the window closed. He curses, but silently.

* * *

He doesn't know a great deal about her, though they are cousins, he thinks, many degrees removed on the tangled branches of the royal Eddisian family tree. They were never in the same circles – even as a child, he was far too serious for the likes of her – and by the time he was thrown into his military training she was already at work with her father, traveling to gods-knew-where, and they have not spoken since they were children. He knows that she is thief but not Thief, not yet, anyway, though she's good enough even at her young age. Her sly and clever father still holds that title, and still holds it well; the minister of war doesn't much like Eugenides but he does admire him tremendously.

She is very merry and very talented and very, very pretty. (But the minister tries not to think about that.)

* * *

"So you're the minister of war," she says over the music, fingers tapping on her cup.

He eyes her cautiously, not knowing if he's walking into a trap or some joke at his expense. He does not trust her, especially not with that light in her eyes.

"Yes," he says finally. It's a touchy subject; he would never have been elevated so far, so quickly had it not been for the defection of Lord Maurianus to the Attolians. It has been a haphazard, frightening thing, keeping the country's defenses together, and he's still not quite sure if he's ready for the task.

"Huh," she says. "You're awfully young for it, aren't you?"

"I promise you, madam, I'm good at my job," he says stonily. "I wouldn't have gotten the position if I wasn't fit for it."

"My," she says. "I wouldn't dream of suggesting otherwise. Do you dance, Minister?"

"Oh, he doesn't dance," one of the minister's brothers says breezily, ducking between them, cutting the minister out of the conversation. "His feet are good for marching, but not much else. Come dance with _me._"

The minister wishes himself far, far away.

"Well," she says, setting down her cup, "since you asked so sweetly."

She takes his arm and lets the prince lead her onto the floor, leaning in to hear him speak low in her ear. She laughs, and the minister shifts uncomfortably.

_I_ can _dance_, the minister thinks to himself.

He turns away and does not watch the two of them.

* * *

Eugenides comes home from a trip down to Sounis white-faced and bleeding from a gash that runs from breast to navel. His daughter looks after him, strained and sober, and when the minister is in a council meeting late one evening and he sees her walking the Sacred Way he quietly slips away to follow her.

He is sitting on a bench outside the temple when she comes out, two hours later. She is tired and disheveled, with purple bruises under her eyes. She's wearing an old coat over trousers and boots and her hair is loose on her shoulders.

"What are you doing here," she says.

"Your father was attacked by assassins," he says. "It's not out of the realm of possibility that they might come back to finish one or both of you off. You should be more careful."

She wakes up enough to look viciously, viciously mad.

"You're not personally responsible for the safety of every citizen of Eddis, you know," she says.

"It's my job," he says lamely, and her brows draw together:

"You know, it's really not," she says.

He opens one hand in acquiescence.

"We don't need defending," she says, and when she shifts he catches the glimmer of a silver blade at her waist, under her coat. "You can stop worrying about me so damned much. We thieves know how to take care of ourselves."

"I know," he says. "I'm sorry."

She looks at him, surprised.

"Are you really?"

"For your father," he says.

"He'll be fine," she says, but her shoulders slump and she lets her hair fall over her face.

* * *

With time, and with a treasure trove of stolen jewellery winking on the altar of the God of Thieves, Eugenides recovers. His daughter, relieved to have the burden taken from her, returns to her merry ways, and even those ladies of the court who harbour resentments over having to go about bare necked are glad to welcome her back.

Soon after, the minister wakes in the middle of the night to the sound of a woman's sigh, somewhere in the corner of his room. He reaches for his sword immediately and has the room ablaze with light in seconds, but if she was ever there she is gone now, leaving only an unlatched window and the lingering smell of honey and eucalyptus.

* * *

When the minister of war leads his horse out of the stables and into the courtyard the thief is there, waiting beside a standing chariot. She smiles when she sees him; the spring melt has come and the sun is warm but there is still a chill in the air and she has a green scarf tossed over her hair and boots on her feet.

"You're leaving the capital?" she asks, and he nods, pulls his horse close and pats him on the neck as he snorts and dances impatiently.

"Patrolling, down on the ridge. And you?" he says. He curls his cold fingers together and brings them up to his mouth to blow on them.

"The court is going for a picnic," she says, lips twisting wryly. "A little early yet, I think, but they're all terribly excited. Lord Vetranis is planning on showing off his chariot-handling skills for me. Where are your gloves?"

He shrugs. "Ruined. Hermongenes thought they'd be handy for cleaning out a brazier." He has spares, but they're not nearly so good and he's ready to go and he doesn't want to wait for someone to fetch him a new pair and – he doesn't want to keep talking, but something quite outside of him spurs him on. "Vetranis is an idiot, you know. You'll have to look out and make sure he doesn't kill you both in that death-trap."

She looks a little taken aback at his sudden attack of verbosity, but amusement wins out over surprise.

"Jealous, are we?" she says, raising both eyebrows as she tucks the ends of her scarf into the collar of her cloak to keep it from scaring the horses, and he can feel his face going quite hot and he only hopes that she doesn't notice. He is spared from answering when Vetranis bounds into the courtyard; he is young and handsome and thoroughly empty-headed, but charming enough, the minister supposes, if one likes that sort of thing. He hopes that she doesn't.

"What's all the hold-up?" Vetranis calls cheerfully. "They've left us all behind, we're late, come on!"

"Coming, dear," she says, and if the minister of war notices the dangerous note in her voice Vetranis doesn't, and in the space of his next heartbeat she smiles at Vetranis so brightly anyway he thinks that perhaps he was mistaken.

The minister of war mounts his horse and does not watch Vetranis help the thief into the chariot, except for when he does. Vetranis hands her in, and the minister of war can see his gloves, fine kid things lined with fur and embroidered in gold.

The minister's hands tighten on the reins; his horse throws his head nervously, and he loosens his grip with reluctance.

He half-expects her to throw a glance over her shoulder at him as they leave. She doesn't, and he can hear her shrieking with laughter over the sound of the chariot jolting off in the other direction, over the rocks and through the slush.

He turns his horse's head toward the hills.

* * *

Three days later, when he finally makes it back to his rooms muddy up to his neck and light-headed with exhaustion, he finds Vetranis's fine soft gloves on the table next to his bed. When he lifts them, confused and more than a little angry, he realises that they are pinning down a note.

_I didn't think he'd miss these,_ it says in a spiky, jaunty hand. _And if he does you can tell him to be more mindful of his possessions and consider the company he keeps._

The minister of war looks at his bed. The trim and neatly-tucked blankets are rumpled slightly, like someone has been sitting on them, and a jar of ink has been left uncovered.

The gloves are rather nice, he thinks, and he puts the note back down.

* * *

The next court function is held during a late freak snowstorm. The minister of war is late; when he makes it back up to the palace from visiting the garrison the festivities have already begun and by the time he sweeps the snow from the shoulders of his cloak and relinquishes it to the hovering servants she in is front of him, one hand on her hip, head tilted.

"You aren't wearing your gloves," she accuses as he runs a hand through his hair to get rid of the last of the snow and wet. There are stones glinting at her ears and throat, opals he knows he's recently seen gracing her haughty cousin Praeiecta, and her cheeks are pink from the heat and from dancing.

He chooses his words carefully, but not carefully enough. "I appreciated the gesture," he says. "But I would rather not wear the fruits of another man's labours. Or another woman's," he amends.

She flushes still deeper, bites her lip, looks down and then up again. Her eyes are bright, but they are more challenging than embarrassed.

"Do you really think your career is morally superior to mine?" she says.

"No," he says truthfully, and she, already opening her mouth to speak, closes it again quite abruptly.

"Oh," she says.

They stand together in silence for several long moments. The minister's arms are folded behind his back quite stiffly, and she sweeps her hair back over her shoulder restlessly, crosses her arms, fidgets with and smoothes down the folds of her dress.

"Would you – "

"Can we – "

They both stop.

The minister of war clears his throat. His eyes are fixed on the small dark ringlets that curl at her temple. "Would you like to dance?"

She smiles brilliantly. "Well, yes," she says, and he meets her eyes, and she takes him by the elbow and tugs him out onto the floor.

* * *

The next time he wakes in the middle of the night to a quiet rustling sound he knows without question that it's her. He pushes himself up on his elbow and peers into the shadows; he can just make out the pale oval of her face, the glint of moonlight off the gold frogs that fasten her dressing gown.

"You're losing your touch," he says.

"Or maybe," she says, coming forward, "I wanted you to know I was here."

He sits up further. She is standing by his bedside now, a strange, sober look on her face. "That's an option too, I suppose," he says, and she bends over him, her hair falling over him in a dark curtain. It is still damp from the baths and smells of a heady mixture of currant and musk, and her eyes are wide when she sinks to sit on the bed beside him. His heartbeat is drumming an uneven tattoo in his chest when her fingertips finally meet his bare chest and she kisses him, and his hand rises of its own volition to bury itself in her hair and her breath stutters warm against his cheek.

* * *

The night they are married, she goes missing half an hour before the ceremony.

He finds her where he knows she'll be, on the highest parapet, sitting perilously close to the edge, her sandaled feet dangling in the open air. Her hair is only half-braided and she is fiddling with the clasp of her bracelet, one bought and not stolen: a gift from her father upon their betrothal.

She half-turns at the sound of his wary footsteps.

"Come sit with me," she says. She pats the tiles next to her. "I won't even make you dance."

The setting sun picks out a few freckles sprinkled across her collarbone.

"I'd rather not," he says. Her god is a capricious one, and though she and those of her line may leave a charmed life he's not certain of how far that sphere of luck extends.

But she holds out her hand and he takes it. She traces over his palm lightly and affectionately with her thumbnail, kisses his knuckles and coaxes him closer to the edge.

"Sit," she says, and he does, pushing his sword out of the way. He always feels ungainly and inelegant next to her, stupid and blunt-tongued, but when she takes his hand into her lap and leans her head on his shoulder he feels transformed and maybe even worthy. He breathes in her perfume, something orange and lively, and he closes his eyes.

They are both late now, but he doesn't really care.


End file.
